Interrailing While Blind: the Ultimate Guide

I took a whole month out to Interrail round Europe (though mostly concentrated in Sweden and Norway) and there are a lot of things I learnt along the way. I’ve written this guide so that other blind people who want to do it can learn from my mistakes and hopefully have a smooth experience.

I’ve divided this guide up into various different sections (all at heading level 2) and for each section I’ve included a few main points (at heading level 3). This should make keyboard navigation through the guide a little easier.

This guide purely looks at the mechanics of Interrailing while blind. Booking passes and reserving seats, getting assistance, and navigating trains. That sort of thing. I haven’t touched on how to choose your route, or what activities to plan, or how to book hotels. I will address those topics in other posts in future.

Buying Your Pass

You’ve got a few options when it comes to buying your pass. Either you can buy directly through the Interrail website, or you may find that your own country’s rail company sells the pass as well. The Interrail website has pretty poor accessibility. At least it did when I purchased my pass in April 2024. This meant I ended up buying a paper pass as when I tried to select a mobile ticket, I could not make that selection as a screen reader user. I thought this wouldn’t be too much of a big deal, but please don’t make my mistake without knowing exactly what you’re getting yourself in to.

Paper passes need to be filled out by hand. It’s not a ticket that you show to someone and they stamp or anything like that. There’s a calendar on it which you must fill out with the trains you’ve taken and on what dates. This is because you’ll get a certain number of travel days within a time period, unless you have specifically purchased a continuous travel pass. Obviously this is very challenging as a blind person, and while I could hope people at stations would help me, I wasn’t willing to take the risk. Although I raised a support ticket, I was told all they could do was refund the pass, not swap it. The only way they’d swap it was if I bought the mobile pass, even though I explained I couldn’t do that due to the poor accessibility of their website. They basically told me I should get a sighted person to help me.

I ended up getting the paper ticket refunded which took a little while but did all work out, and buying the mobile pass through My Interrail, which is a website associated with National Rail. I highly recommend using this website if you are based in the UK as I was able to purchase the mobile pass without issue. Although the Interrail website indicates they will only refund 85% of the value of the pass, they did give me the full value back which I appreciated a lot.

It’s worth noting that if you are travelling with someone, Interrail will allow you to get a second pass for free, which is for the person with you to use. This is in cases where you require a guide or other assistant. I didn’t need one of these, so I’m not sure how that works if you buy your pass through National Rail. Given that it’s a valid Interrail pass it shouldn’t matter, but I’d check that before you buy a pass.

Purchasing a pass main Points

• Paper tickets must be filled in by hand. Consider how you’ll do this if you buy one.
• If you are based in the UK, you can buy Interrail passes through National Rail’s My Interrail website.
• Disabled people can request a second pass for free, which is for an assistant to accompany them.

The Interrail App

If you have a mobile pass, you’ll need to activate it in the Interrail app by using the code which will have been emailed to you. This also had pretty awful accessibility as of June 2024. I was able to set the app up by using screen recognition on iOS, though this is hit and miss and I know of at least one other blind person who had to get assistance. Once set up, you can register your mobile pass in the app.

Registering your pass is also a bit of an accessibility nightmare. You have to select the start date for your pass, but this was completely inaccessible, and I even struggled when using screen recognition. It must have taken me a solid 15 minutes to select the start date, and even now I couldn’t tell you exactly how I did it.

Despite the accessibility issues, it’s really essential that you do use the app as this is the way your tickets are validated. Particularly on trains where you don’t need a reservation, a conductor will check your app and make sure the train you are on has been added to it.

If you’ve bought a flexible pass, which means you can travel on a certain number of days, you will need to add journeys to the pass in the app. Unfortunately, doing this is currently not fully accessible. You will need to use screen recognition in order to move a journey from your trip to your pass. I still think the app is a better option than the paper pass as ultimately you have control over it and you are able to navigate it with Voiceover enough to be able to see what journeys have been added to your pass. This is something that would be a lot harder if people were writing all over your paper pass.

I had a meeting with the app developers who seemed to be actively interested in making the experience better for blind users. I will be travelling again next year and will update with more information then, unless someone shares their experiences with me sooner.

The Interrail app main Points

• The Interrail app has hit and miss accessibility. You may need assistance setting it up.
• Mobile tickets can be added to the app, paper tickets cannot.
• You will need to activate your pass before you travel.

Getting Rail Assistance

In the UK, we have the right to turn up and go. That means that although you can book rail assistance using the passenger assistance app, you are not required to do so. This is not the case in Europe. Although disabled passengers are legally entitled to assistance on trains, how this works varies from country to country, and even between train companies in the same country.

If you’re taking the Eurostar from the UK, you don’t need to book assistance but it’s probably worth doing it, if only to guarantee that you’ll get it on the other end. Booking is fairly easy, as there’s a fairly detailed Eurostar passenger assistance page on their website, which includes a link to a booking form. You can also phone them if you’d prefer to book it that way. They state that if they can’t get you on the train you’ve got a booked ticket for, they will book you onto a later train free of charge. Of course I’d hope they wouldn’t need to, but it’s good to know that this is their policy just in case.

I found rail assistance throughout Europe very inconsistent. For example in Norway you can only request assistance at certain stations. That means if you’re travelling through one of the stations that doesn’t provide it, you’re on your own. I’m not sure how that works legally speaking but I also knew I would have to deal with it regardless. If you’re going to Interrail I think you need to prepare yourself for this reality whether it’s right or not. There are plenty of European countries where rail assistance is pretty much unheard of, and you need to decide before you go whether this is something you can deal with.

When I did get assistance, everyone was very nice and helpful. They helped me find the train I needed and would sometimes help me find my seat. Other times, if the conductor was there they would ask them to do it. One thing that could be a bit tricky was finding the assistance people at the train station before getting on the train. I found that in Norway and Sweden in particular there are very few staff in the station in general, and so it can be difficult to find someone to help. However, when I did find people they were more than willing to direct me to the right waiting area.

Given the differences between the assistance reservation process in each country I won’t go into the specifics too much as it really depends on where you are planning to go. However here’s a list of assistance contact details which you can browse to find the one you need. You just need to navigate down the page a bit to find it, but it does include the email addresses and phone numbers that you’ll need.

Rail assistance main points

• Assistance on the Eurostar can be reserved using this form, but you’ll need to fill it in at least 24 hours before you travel.
• Each country, and even train company, may have their own system for booking assistance.
• In some countries the person assisting you will only show you to the doors of the train, then you will find your seat.
• If you’re booking assistance by email, try arranging a meeting point so that you know exactly where to wait for them.

Reserving seats on trains

Some trains in Europe will require you to make a seat reservation. With other trains, all you need to do is get on, find a free seat, and show your pass when they come round to check your tickets. While in theory Interrailing means you don’t need to pay for trains as you already have your pass, this isn’t exactly the case. For trains that don’t require a seat reservation this will be your experience, however on other trains it’s mandatory and there’ll be a small fee.

You will need to reserve a seat if you are using the Eurostar and there’s a small fee for Interrail pass holders. There are a few websites you can use to do this, however Rail Europe was by far the most accessible I found. You can also make a booking over the phone by calling Eurostar sales directly. I had a bit of a nightmare with my reservation as you don’t actually get emailed your ticket, because you need to fill in advanced passenger information before that can happen. When I tried to fill in the form using my booking reference it kept giving me an error and saying my booking hadn’t been found, so I had to open a case with Eurostar. Whilst this isn’t a blindness issue it’s worth bearing in mind and giving yourself plenty of time to reserve your seat, just in case something like this happens. I didn’t have this issue when reserving my seat for the return trip, so I do think this was one of those weird one off errors.

Other train companies have different rules. I sometimes chose to make reservations even when it wasn’t required because the small amount I had to pay was worth taking away all of my anxiety. The Man in Seat 61 has a post which goes over the process for reserving seats with an interrail pass and I highly recommend reading it. There’s a lot of information and it can be quite confusing to get your head around, but I generally found it very helpful and I referred back to it so many times during my trip.

This is also one of the times where the Interrail app is useful. When you search for a journey it will tell you if a seat reservation is required on that train. It doesn’t seem like you can make the reservation within the app but at least you’ll know when it’s necessary to do so.

I was travelling quite a lot in Norway and I downloaded the Entur app. Unfortunately it seems like you have to use the website to make interrail seat reservations, but once you’ve made your reservation it will appear in the app. I found this to be very helpful as I had a central place to locate all of my tickets for Norway. You can easily change the app to English, and it’s fully accessible using VoiceOver. There’s also a live chat feature you can use and a customer service representative can book your seat for you, so that’s nice.

The Deutsche Bahn app is also accessible, however at login you will be presented with an hCaptcha. Even when I added the accessibility cookie to my phone I still couldn’t get round the captcha, so I had to screen share with an AIRA agent to solve it. Once you’re in, the app is great.

Seat reservations main points

• Some train companies will require you to reserve seats and others won’t.
• Sometimes a seat reservation is free with your Interrail pass, other times you must pay a small fee.
• The Interrail app can tell you if seat reservations are required for a journey.

Checking train times

There were a few ways I found to check train times. It’s possible to look them up in the Interrail app. Although the app is generally terrible, this was by far the best and most accessible part of the app, and it was quite useful if I was on the move and needed to look something up quickly. Once I’d actually set off this was pretty much the only way I looked up train times.

I also looked up some trains in advance of my trip and did this using my Windows PC, so I can’t comment on the accessibility of the websites when viewed on a phone, but again I used the Entur website, Deutsche Bahn, and SJ Trains.

When you’re on the train

Surviving so many train journeys is honestly a post in itself. I recommend taking a separate day pack with your essentials in it, so that you can store your main piece of luggage but still access everything you need. You’ll want to make sure you have your phone and tickets to hand, as well as your passport or other form of ID just in case. I also kept a phone charger and battery pack on hand, as well as snacks, a bottle of water, and hand sanitiser.

Trains typically don’t have braille seat numbers, so you’ll have to figure out a way of identifying your seat if you get up to go to the bathroom or to buy food. I did my best to count the number of rows between where I was sitting and the door, so that I could navigate more easily back to it. I also left an AirTag on my seat so that I could track it using my phone.

Figuring out whether a seat was reserved or not was also an interesting experience. Obviously if there was someone sitting there I would find them with my cane, but when a seat was empty I couldn’t always tell if it was one that someone else had reserved or not. On trains where I hadn’t reserved a seat I would generally ask someone, and everyone I asked was happy to give me the information I needed.

Some trains will have a specific dining area and others may sell snacks and drinks. There are also plenty of trains that don’t sell food or drink at all. I found this information pretty readily available online by googling the type of train and route. I made sure to factor in finding a shop and purchasing snacks, as well as checking out whether there were shops or cafes at train stations where I could buy something to take with me. If you’re receiving assistance they may or may not help you buy food at the train station. In Norway their policy was that they would assist you to get food and drinks, but no other shopping.

Knowing where the dining area was could be challenging. Even if I knew where I was and what coach it was in, I didn’t always know how they were ordered. When I remembered I’d ask the person assisting me, at other times I asked passengers on the train. It took me a while to work up the courage to actually go and find it. I found it a slightly overwhelming experience because it could be difficult to know what the process was. If you sat down, or if you had to get in a line. But I managed by asking for information. One of the hardest parts was carring my food and coffee back to my seat while also holding my cane, and walking through a moving train!

Finding train toilets could be similarly awkward, especially because once found, it was difficult to know what all the buttons would do. Luckily at least on some of the Deutsche Bahn trains the buttons had braille labels. Of course these were in German, but they were fairly basic words so easy enough to figure out.

On the train main points

• Finding specific areas of the train like dining and toilets is likely to involve asking people.
• Bring snacks and water because some of those journeys are long.
• Most trains will have plugs at your seat so charging your phone shouldn’t be too challenging.

Navigating train stations

Whether you get assistance or not depends on how far in advance you booked, and whether it was even possible to arrange it. So at some point you may find yourself having to navigate an unfamiliar station. I personally find getting off the platform the hardest part of navigation as trains are so loud I may not even hear the direction other people are moving in.

I also didn’t want to rely on everyone around me being able to speak English. I really try not to assume that other people will be able to, especially when I don’t speak their language. If I knew I was likely to be in this situation I made sure that my translation app of choice was ready on my phone so that I could show them my question.

This was one of those times where having Aira minutes was very useful. For example I got off a train in Oslo to find that there was no assistance, and I was in the middle of a very loud, violent thunder storm. I could hardly hear anything and the wind was blowing my cane around it was that strong. I was able to find a sheltered area with the help of an Aira agent and then work with them to find the platform for my next train. It was definitely one of those moments I wouldn’t like to repeat, but I had the tools to get through it.

Generally speaking I found people at the train stations very friendly. Whether they were other passengers or staff, they were willing to help and give me the information I needed. Some train stations had tactile lines on the ground which you can follow with your cane. I think these are more helpful when you somewhat know the station, as I wasn’t always sure where the line would take me to! For example would it lead me to the stairs or to another platform. However, in combination with information from other people they were quite helpful.

Other modes of transport

Even though this is a post about Interrailing, you may find yourself in a situation where taking the train isn’t an option. There were places I wanted to visit in Norway that were only possible to reach by boat, and so I had to navigate a totally new way of travelling. I also found myself on the bus a few times, particularly in areas where trains are unavailable and once for a replacement rail service. Truly I felt like I was back in England! My advice in situations like this is to keep an open mind and remember that the skills you use when travelling by train overlap with other types of transport. You’ll be ok.

Final thoughts

Overall, Interrailing was an incredible experience and I’m so glad that I did it. The state of accessibility where the app and website is concerned is such a shame and can have an impact on your experience if you are blind. Setting it up and adding journeys was unnecessarily difficult and it’s such an easy fix. When I chatted to them they did seem very aware of this so I feel genuinely hopeful that the situation will improve.

I think I could have benefited from a bit more advanced planning, as there were quite a few times when I’d planned to take a train but found I couldn’t because it wasn’t running, or there were no seats. This was a very last minute trip and I had to be flexible and move things around. This ended up being quite fun but I understand that other people might not enjoy that kind of experience.

I calculated how much I spent on the entire trip and I will not be sharing it here because it still horrifies me. However you have to bear in mind that I always stayed in hotels where I had my own room, rather than sharing in a hostel, and I paid for plenty of activities as I can’t guarantee the accessibility of a museum or other more affordable things to do. In the end, I visited four countries and thirteen different places. While I focussed on Norway, I feel like I was able to get the most out of my other stops, and even when I only had a day or less in a place I found something to do.

I did this all on my own. From the planning to actually going out there and finding every train, I was the one who took the lead. That’s fairly typical for most adults who travel, but there are so many extra considerations when you are blind, and I know that there was a time not so long ago when doing something like this would have felt impossible. I’m so glad that I made the decision to do this and I really advise others to step outside of their comfort zone. That’s going to look different for every person, but it’s worth it.